Dabang Delhi continued its see saw campaign in Pro Kabaddi 2016 Season 4 as they hurtled to another defeat on Tuesday night against a Rahul Chaudhari led Telugu Titans. In some days, its quite a possibility that the franchise will find itself replacing the word ‘Inconsistent’ in the Oxford English Dictionary, for they have been more inconsistent than inconsistent itself. The loss yesterday continued Delhi’s mind baffling sequence of losses in all of their odd numbered games. In their even numbered games though the team has never been defeated.
As interesting as the statistic might be to those who love the sport for the numbers, its just plain frustrating for any fan of the side. The team has flirted with their hopes and expectations for too long now to have measly returns of three wins to show.
With such results, it is only just that the team finds itself in the last position, although they have played three lesser games than the seventh placed Bengal Warriors. However, Delhi haven’t had a campaign like Bengal Warriors either where they hardly looked like winning. Instead, on some days, they have looked as good as any team that has ever gone to battle it out on the mat.
Not just that, even in games they’ve lost, for a long stretch of time they have looked tough to crack. But when they crack, it is so bad that every weakness kept hidden inside spills out in front of the opposition. Even in their game against Telugu Titans, the team was breathing down the men in yellow’s neck till the first 19 minutes of the game and were one super raid away from swinging the game in their favor.
However, the opposite happened instead as Delhi blinked first and led by the street smart Rahul Chaudhari, the Titans ran away with the game in that blink. And once Delhi is left chasing the opponents, they totally crack under pressure. The Dabang Delhi outfit hasn’t showed the quality of a U Mumba who can never be counted out until the last whistle of the match, and instead have never done well once they have been pushed on the backfoot in the first half. The team has to show greater hunger and application as the tournament moves to its business end.
Giving captaincy duties to Meraj Sheykh has proved to be a good move, if not a masterstroke and the team must rally around the Iranian’s individual brilliance to give their supporters something to cheer about. Kashiling Adake’s season is slipping deeper into straits and he should at least deliver to justify the team’s continued faith in him. The injury to rising star Sanket Chavan has put further roadblocks on Delhi’s chances of rising to top 4 as Chavan, along with Sachin Shingade were doing a yeoman’s service to the franchise in the defence.
With five matches still left, Delhi will have to string together more wins than they have in their first nine games to have an outside chance of breaking into the top four. Up next is the Jaipur Pink Panthers who gave them an unforgettable bashing when the teams last met. However, Abhishek Bachchan’s team will be wary of the fact that they take on the team in their odd numbered fixture.
